A tinkling cymbal

Is your stomach strong enough for more vulgar malice and abuse from that impressive Anglican priest George Pitcher?

He starts with mere stupidity, attributing every good thing in the world apart from coffee and the internet to theology. Yes really: theology. Theology did democracy, the abolition of slavery, education, the family, marriage, our judicial system – everything. Then he goes on to rail at Terry Sanderson, but, quickly bored with that, he returns to his real voodoo doll: Evan Harris.

The NSS (in which, never let it be forgotten, ousted Lib Dem MP Evan Harris is a leading light) likes to go on about opposing religious privilege, freedom for non-believers (as if they haven’t got it) and tolerance. But note that if the likes of Mr Sanderson ever came to power (and the likes of Mr Sanderson include the wall-eyed Harris, who might have a seat in government now if he hadn’t lost his seat – so who says there isn’t a God?) they would withdraw all funding from the teaching of theology, whence all education derives, in favour of what he and his friends have unilaterally decided is “real education”. That is extremist policy that has more in common with totalitarian regimes than with our parliamentary democracy.

Completely random arbitrary abuse of Evan Harris coupled with the imbecilic claim that all education derives from theology; modern Anglicanism at its finest.

16 Responses to “A tinkling cymbal”

Silly preacher. It’s chocolate that’s a divine gift; it’s right there in the name: theobromine.

I’m still waiting to hear Pitcher call of the removal of the bishops from the Lords. After all, he seems terrible upset that politicians might have other interests besides being MPs, or – God forbid – might indeed have those interest influence their policy.

Oh! Silly me – the bishops aren’t elected. It’s only bad when people are elected for what they believe in. Got it.

What an extraordinarily pissy, hissy-fit blog post. That first childish bracketed aside…

It’s by Terry Sanderson, who is president of the National Secular Society (membership: 12).

…pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the article. The concentration of attack on Terry Sanderson and secularists personally – ‘under-educated’,’but I imagine (a verb rarely found in the secularist lexicon)’, ‘obviously wasn’t paying attention in class’, ‘dim-witted thesis’, ‘would be dangerous if they were better educated’ – and the ludicrously overlong list of Good Things apparently attributable to theology (not to religion, inspiration or belief mind, which with a bit more nuance could be a more interesting discussion point, but to theology), rather gives away the fact that George’s anger at Terry Sanderson’s original article has entirely got in the way of his writing a mature and thoughtful reply. Everyone does it, of course – it’s easy to take the argumental low ground and all-to-easy to let slip a few personal attacks in heat of the moment – but it doesn’t make it right, and one would think someone writing for a national newspaper who is obviously not completely stupid would be aware of this.The whole article is one of those that makes you clench your fists in annoyance at its sheer wrong-headedness, but two things are particularly annoying to me because they’re so obviously simplified or straightforwardly incorrect.

freedom for non-believers (as if they haven’t got it)

Again, childish, but more importantly, ignorant: the sort of work the NSS does – fighting against people like Debbie Morris, who just don’t get it, against subsidised school transport for those attending religious schools, against religious privilege in the workplace, House of Lords, etc – demonstrates that, in fact George, non-believers are perceived by some to be less deserving of certain freedoms that those with supernaturalist beliefs.Then there’s that almighty list

The majority of the canon of moral philosphy, universal literacy and education, the bulk of inspiration for Renaissance art, our judicial system, the establishment of colonial systems of democracy, abolition of human abominations such as the slave trade, the bases of family and marriage, social and individual obligation to the poor and marginalised, the greatest architecture the world has ever known, much of the voluntary sector and the grounding of the entire principle of charity, hospitals, human life as service and self-sacrifice and the whole premise for an Enlightenment that launched the wonderful science before which Mr Sanderson squirms in adulation.

Which quite impressively manages to confuse and conflate religion, religious belief, religious inspiration and the effect of religion structures on the organisation of society (especially where there weren’t really any other sorts); makes various assumptions, such as the apparent automatic goodness of religious ideas about ‘the bases of family and marriage’; ignores the appearance of universal moral tenets in other religions and secular belief systems, quite significant if your argument centres on the importance of something as religion-specific as theology, and of charitable work by the non-religious; ignores the role of religion in the perpetuation of judicial inequality, in the slave trade (mandated by the Bible and merrily going on under the watch of many a Christian, remember George?), in the stifling of science; and manages to throw in another personal attack at the end. But I’ve gone on too long anyway for a comment – this sort of stuff just drives me so crazy. Must go and have a lie down.

Anyway – same here. He’s nasty and stupid in every word – he’s so thorough about it – in the very act of claiming overall superiority for his job and way of thinking. And the Telegraph encourages him. It really does make the blood boil. (Not literally, but really.)

Pitcher’s opening pitch: “Is this the silliest paragraph ever written by a secularist?…”(No, but what follows is probably the nastiest blog ever written by a small-minded Christian.)

“…the establishment of colonial systems of democracy [!], abolition of human abominations such as the slave trade [!], the bases of family and marriage [!], social and individual obligation to [of?] the poor and marginalised, the greatest architecture the world has ever known [!] are most impressive structures much of the voluntary sector and the grounding of the entire principle of charity, hospitals, human life as service and self-sacrifice and the whole premise for an Enlightenment that launched the wonderful science before which… etc, etc.”

For every pling [!] I could substitute a comment such as: a. European colonies were democracies – news to me; b. ever heard of the descent from Ham? – which idea was used to justify black slavery?; c. I take it that Christianity inspired the Parthenon, the Theatre of Epidavros, the Taj Mahal and the Sydney Opera House; And so on; not so much from wishing to score a point as to point out alternative points of view. But what would be the point?

After seeking relief in a glance through the comments, I inclined to give the prize to theeponymousbob on May 29th, 2010 at 11:07 pm

“.. Mr Pitcher presents his beliefs by distorting the views of others and then attacking these distortions. This is not only dishonest, it goes against the very faith that he claims to live by (You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour)…” But poor Bob gets lined up for a really devastating salvo from Tom Hamilton on May 30th, 2010 at 11:01 pm:

“theeponymousbob: The basis for secularism and specifically Atheism, is the desire to create ones very own laws and morals, to undo the restrictions of Christian law and morality to a greater extent. One reason the church is being torn apart by sexual deviants trying to ‘modernise’ Why new laws were brought in under the new religion of diversity and equality, to usurp the billions who adhere to traditional biblical faith. Yours is not a harmless concept, oh no, this new aggressive movement is destructive and fascistic, a new world order. Don’t try to pretend its benign. You are nothing of the sort.”

So there you have it. All the child abuse scandals from around the world that are at present shaking down that wonderful edifice we know (and love) as the Catholic Church are – wait for it – down to those outside it. Secularism is like the mustard gas used in the WW1 trenches: insidious, all-pervasive; toxic and terrifying. Tom’s got it all worked out.

Yes, the ‘highly-intellectual’ George, Tom, Dominic et al, have got it all figured out. They’re right and we’re wrong and if you dare to mention anything mildly rational which is outside of their sphere of thinking (and worthy of debate) you’re ‘immoral’ or a ‘fascist’ or just an ‘idiot’. Really, is there any point in arguing with these people? They’re not on the same wavelength and never will be.

Ah, from now on I will know to refer to this kind of thing as ‘more one-handed typing from Pitcher.’ However shocking the allegation, he obviously gets off on his own ostentatious badboyism.

There’s no point in arguing with these people, but there’s lots of point in showing them up! All one has to do with Pitcher is quote him.

I wonder what Rowan Williams thinks of him. Williams is fretted about gay bishops and lesbian vicars and so on, I wonder if he’s fretted about the showy vulgarity of the orthodox straight male Rev Pitcher.

‘Wall-eyed Harris’? What? I don’t know whether or not Harris suffers from Strabismus or whether Pitcher is claiming that Harris is ‘utterly and incurably perverted’ but either way it is a long way from civilised discourse.

All education derives from theology? No, but for a while in some societies theology managed to get a lock on education. Much to our collective disservice.

Pitcher always gets personal and downright rude, regardless of the seriousness of the debate. He uses this ‘technique’ to prove his point, much to the delight of his supporters who lap it up with glee. The expression ‘sarcasm is the lowest form of wit’ comes to mind.

Well I go in for plenty of low sarcasm myself, so I can’t (if I want to be consistent) condemn sarcasm as such…But on the other hand I’m not an Anglican vicar, with all the pretensions to moral sensitivity which that implies. It’s obliging of Pitcher to reveal the hollowness of that pretense so starkly, but if I were an Anglican vicar, I wouldn’t do what Pitcher does.

Anyway…I go in for plenty of low sarcasm but I at least take the trouble to show what I’m being sarcastic about, as opposed to just calling random people ‘wall-eyed’ and ‘Doctor Death’ and the like while talking about entirely other things.

Plus I’m better at it than Pitcher. Pitcher is just…well vulgar is the right word, so I keep coming back to it.

Well, perhaps you’re right: there are occasions when sarcasm is called for. Actually, each time I read any of Pitcher’s ramblings I am slightly amused because his vitriol is definitely doing his church a disservice. You see, ‘bums on pews’ in this part of the world are getting fewer by the day.